Angela Merkel speaks straight out of the playbook of Marine Le Pen
Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany in addressing delegates attending the congress of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to present her bid to be re-elected as leader of the CDU publicly stated her position on Muslims in Germany that was straight out of the play book of Marine Le Pen. Merkel is reported as stating as follows: “German law takes precedence over sharia.” “The full face veil must be banned wherever legally possible.” “Here in Germany the laws of our country are applied to everyone without any exception.” On the 2015 flood of refugees to Germany Merkel states: “We have repeatedly stated that that situation that occurred in late summer, 2015, cannot, should not, and will not be repeated.” Merkel is then embracing the extremist fringe in an attempt to win votes and appeal to the mood she perceives a significant number of German voters are in whilst continuing to attack the extremists in a necessary attempt to differentiate herself from them even though she has publicly embraced the discourse of the extremists. Merkel is then granting legitimacy to extremist discourse whilst insisting that she is not extremist and worthy of trust by the electorate so you can eat your cake and have your legitimate extremism also. Extremism has now gone mainstream as the lapdogs of globalised neo-liberalism especially of the financial markets have now embraced extremism in a calculated bid to rescue the neo-liberal hegemony from assault from the lunatic fringes of the left and right. The lesson in this is that the servants of neo-liberalism will embrace all political discourses of whatever pedigree in its imperative to preserve the hegemony of the neo-liberal project just watch Trump as he performs his three card shell game. So much for the democracy project. It is now apparent that Marine Le Pen is the discursive agent targeted to have her public discourse hijacked and used as a weapon against her by the legitimate mainstream right wing of EU politics as it flirts with the extremism it publicly condemns to disarm her discourse and render her impotent in the electoral politics of France and the EU. This has to be neutralised with an effective counter assault that goes to the heart of the neo-liberal agenda and its impact on the quality of life of the overwhelming majority of French and EU citizens.